Bob's Books

Why this book: Selected by my literature reading group and also by my family to read and discuss at a family reunion.  It won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in the 1930s – continues to be a classic  and is a very short read.  Also, I have read and been moved several times by  Thornton Wilder’s other Pulitzer Prize winning work, The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

Summary in 3 Sentences: The play offers  three snapshots of life in a small town in New Hampshire in the early 1900s narrated by the stage manager – an omniscient God-like figure, compassionate and wise who speaks directly to the audience.  We get to know two families and a number of figures in the small town, and through them, the tempo and rhythms of life in that town, but by analogy, life in almost any community.  We see how the little things that happen in all of our lives – family, love, loss, joy, disappointment – are the essence of our lives – and the play delivers this message simply and powerfully.

My Impressions:  I loved watching this play and I loved reading it.  I had seen it performed many years ago on TV with Hal Holbrook playing the stage manager, and after reading it this time, I watch it again on DVD  – with Paul Newman (2003 production) playing the stage manager.  It was very powerful and moving watching it after reading it – Paul Newman was superb as the stage manager, and the other characters were also excellent. I saw several things that touched me that I had missed in reading the play.  I can’t recommend highly enough reading the play, then watching it – especially the Paul Newman version.

Because of its short-length (about 100 pages) and the simplicity of the language and style, it is often assigned reading in high-school, but I believe it is best appreciated by a more mature, and life-experienced audience.  By seeing the lives of a few people in this New England town at different points in their lives, and with the added omniscient perspective offered by the stage manager, we gain a perspective on the moments we live within the larger context of our whole lives,  the life of our community and of our nation.

The three acts of the play are: 1 Daily Life, 2 Love and Marriage, and 3 Death and Dying. The first two acts give us glimpses into the simple joys of life in Grovers Corner ,New Hampshire at the beginning of the 20th century and are insightful and moving in their innocence and simplicity.  The most powerful part of the play is in the third act – the culmination of the play – when one of the characters in the book who has passed away joins the ranks of the dead, and we are given a different perspective on the world of the still-living.  This character chooses to go back and revisit  a moment in the life she had lived, though the other no-longer living souls she had joined strongly recommended against it.  With the perspective of beyond the grave, she realizes how wonderful the little moments in her life were that she had failed to appreciate while experiencing them.  It was extremely sad and frustrating for her to see how unconsciously she and others in her life were going through their daily rituals and lives.  “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it- every, every minute?” she asks.  “No.” replied the stage manager. “The saints and poets maybe.  They do some.”

The third act is powerful. It was particularly moving for me as I watched the Paul Newman version of it at our family reunion, with every one of the 4 generations of my family – to include my 91 year old father and 88 year old mother.

The copy of the book in the image with this post includes an extensive afterward about how the play was initially received,  more about Thornton Wilder and about the impact the play has had.  It was initially panned in many cities – due to its sparse scenery and somewhat mystical message.  Then its popularity grew and continues, nearly 8 decades later.   I might argue that it is timeless, in how well it treats timeless themes.

Two descriptions of the play in the afterward that I thought captured how I felt about the book:

“Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times: <Our Town>  “…transmitted the simple events of human life into universal reverie and contained nothing less than a fragment of the immortal truth.”

Wilder’s fiction includes the themes  “…of the repetition of family life, the chorus of life and death, and man’s relation to time and space.”

Key Take Aways for me:

• The main take-away, and this isn’t trivial:  Whenever I can, I should step back and look at what I’m doing, how I’m treating people, and where I’m giving my energy and priorities – as if I were coming back from beyond the grave and observing myself.  Am I focusing on the right things? Am I realizing what from the BIG picture perspective, is TRULY important? Am I making decisions, or behaving in ways that  I may regret later?
• This is related:  Don’t take anything for granted.  What we accept as “the way things are” is only temporary.  The rhythms of life in our community – patterns of life which we count on every day will change.  People grow older, technology changes the way we live, accidents happen, people move away, people we know well and some we don’t, die.

Why this book:  A good friend of mine was reading it and I decided to read it as well.  I had heard of Basilone – there is a statue of him in Little Italy in San Diego, and part of Highway 5 going thru Camp Pendleton is named for him.  And I was aware that he was featured in the HBO series The Pacific, but knew very little about him.

Summary in 3 Sentences: This is a full-life “authorized” biography of John Basilone, USMC Medal of Honor recipient from Guadalcanal,  but it is written in the first person as an autobiography. The author, speaking as he believed Basilone would candidly tell his own story, begins with his childhood,  continues into his troubled teenage and young adulthood years, and finally tells of his time in the Marine Corps, which of course include his actions at Guadalcanal, for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor.  A good portion of the book takes place after Guadalcanal, and covers his recovery from that battle, his struggle with what we now call PTSD, and his discomfort as a war hero selling war bonds,  until he returns to the war and ultimately is killed in Iwo Jima.

My Impressions:  When I began the book, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read a novelized version of Basilone’s life –  “authorized” by his family perhaps to enhance the already iconic image of this WWII marine hero.    But I stuck with it and I’m glad I did.  I thought the author did a credible job of making him into a real person, representative of the strengths and weaknesses of working class Americans of that era – what Tom Brokaw called “the Greatest Generation.”

In many ways this book was reminiscent of Unbroken, Louis Zamperini’s story of growing up in a first generation Italian immigrant family. Both grew up very Catholic, did not fit in at school, were inspired by their older brothers, and felt an agonizing tension between their need for excitement and adventure, and their need to not disappoint their traditional Italian immigrant parents, who simply wanted their sons to get a respectable job, a wife, and raise a family in the community. Both found an outlet for their energy in outstanding  athletic performance, eventually found themselves in the military and World War Two, and became war heroes.  Both became celebrities, were lionized by the public as war heroes, succumbed to excess with alcohol, women, partying, and found redemption in returning to religion to help deal with their confusion and identity crises.

There are however significant differences.  Whereas Zamparini became a collegiate and Olympic hero before the war, Basilone was a classic n’er-do-well with an 8th grade education, and found no inspiration or opportunities in depression-era America.  With few other options, he enlisted in the Army in 1935, excelled as soldier, was sent to the Philippines where he worked under Gen Douglas MacArthur, fought Philippine guerrillas for several years and became a boxing champion.  But he became  very disillusioned with the Army, got out after his 4 year hitch, and returned to New Jersey.  He drifted again  and did not finding anything that fit, until again, he joined the military – this time the USMC where he found a home.  It was 1940, and he knew, as did many in America, that we would be going to war, and the Marines were seriously preparing for it.

Basilone’s first call into combat was to reinforce the Marines who had withstood the initial Japanese attacks on their foothold in Guadalcanal.  The book describes several months of extremely intense combat, when Basilone served under his hero and legendary Marine, Chesty Puller, as the Marines desperately withstood all that the Japanese could throw at them. Their success was the first Allied victory against Japanese ground troops in the war.  It is an incredible story of heroism in the most challenging and desperate of circumstances.  Afterward, Basilone and his Marines were relieved and sent to recover in Australia where he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on Guadalcanal.  When his unit was ordered back into the war, Basilone was ordered home to serve as a spokesman to help drum up support for the military and the war bond effort.

Though Basilone was never comfortable as a war hero and public figure, he did enjoy the partying on the celebrity circuit selling war bonds.   While he was living the high-life, he also experienced a lot of survivor guilt – guilt at being lauded a hero,  after so many of his men, who he had felt responsible for, were killed on Guadalcanal.  It didn’t feel right to be staying in nice hotels and treated to the best while his fellow Marines were still in the swamps and jungles, still in the fight in the South Pacific.  After his war bond tour, he was ordered to a staff position in Washington DC to be available to be a show-horse to represent the Marine Corps at fund- raising and publicity events.  He rebelled and requested that Gen Vandegrift, for whom he had served in Guadalcanal, get him orders back to the front.  He was then sent to Camp Pendleton where he prepared himself and his new platoon to go back into the Pacific.  Hence the title, “I’m staying with my boys.”

Basilone  was an admitted lady’s man and unapologetic in telling of his playfully uncommitted sex life with women of “easy virtue,” and of his several mistresses. He was attractive to ladies, and loved their company and attention, but was not one to commit.  There were four women he identifies with whom he had close and emotional relationships, to include the woman he eventually did choose to marry just before he was shipped back to the Pacific, where he was killed during the assault on Iwo Jima.  One of those special women lovers was Virginia Gray, a well known movie actress of the day, who he met while on the celebrity war bonds selling tour.  This relationship was apparently very close, though it had no future.  It got into the press which enhanced his celebrity image, and also was highlighted in the HBO series The Pacific. 

I found the book engaging and enjoyable.  I felt I got to know, admire, partially understand  and sympathize with Basilone’s struggles. I didn’t feel like the author tried to make him into a superhuman hero – really sought to make him humble, human and approachable.    The author does well in capturing the voice of a working class Italian American hero of the 1930s and 40s telling his story, and in capturing the mood of America, and the Marine Corps in that era.  Who’d a thunk – he was also a golfer and an amateur opera singer!  It is a very American story, of an immigrant kid who struggles, takes on America’s values and lives to embody much of what makes America great.

A couple of quotes I marked:  

It’s a terrible feeling when you know there’s something you could be great at but you just don’t know what it is. p47

Not doing things right becomes a habit, like anything else.  Pretty soon nobody expects you to do anything right and you get shipped off to a relative like I did. Then the other side was, like in Army basic, you do something right, you get used to doing everything right, people expect you to do everything right and that’s how you become Manila John, undefeated in nineteen fights.  118

This was it then.  It was the way you did things, not what y ou did, that mattered.  119

It looked like my path was something more slippery, something inside me that no one could see and was even hard to explain.  Maybe my path was a way of thinking. p 120

I saw the blueprint for how I was connected to everything else and believed that I was onto something.  More than anything I saw that I was the main ingredient in the recipe.120

Like the rest of us, he knew it didn’t really matter what you were doing or where you were.  If you were in a frontline combat outfit like ours, the only things that mattered were the guys next to you. If they were alive, your chance were a little better than if they were dead. That was about it. So we didn’t care much for anything except each other anymore.   p 193

Why this book:  Selected by the All American Leadership reading group for our bi-monthly discussion for July-August 2016.

Summary in 3 sentences: Angela Duckworth dives deep into a quality which all of us recognize as strength of will, fortitude, stick-to-itiveness, focus, among other names.  She writes in first person, sharing personal anecdotes, some of her own struggles and doubts, and various scientific studies that help us understand her conviction that “grit” is ultimately what differentiates those who truly make a difference from those who don’t.  Most importantly she discusses how we can develop grit in ourselves, in our children and those we mentor, as well as in the organizations we lead.

My Impressions: Angela Duckworth explores and dives pretty deeply into the idea of grit in an engaging and very personal way.  She offers us not only edifying, but also an interesting and entertaining read. It is as much a story of her own journey into understanding this well known, but somewhat illusive quality, as it is an exploration.  In addition to her many examples of people – many celebrities – who she refers to as “paragons of grit” she also admits where she is not clear, where she has struggled, and in some cases where she still may be a bit confused. In her section on goals, she admits that she struggles to reconcile her personal goals (be a great mother, friend, spouse) with her professional goals (use psychological science to help kids thrive) when her efforts to excel at both often seem to bring these two goals into tension.

I would highly recommend the chapters on parenting for grit and the playing fields of grit for parents.

I really liked this book and learned a lot from it. Here are my Key Take-Aways:

•  Effort counts twice.  Consistency of effort, over time is the key ingredient to success.
• Passion can be developed – beginning with interest.  If one is willing to practice and get better, passion can grow. Passion for one’s work is not (necessarily) a flame in the heart, an immediate sense of a  God-given calling. It can develop over time.   She makes the obvious analogy with finding a mate.
• Growth Mindset->optimistic self talk -> perseverance over adversity.
• Her discussion of the difference between deliberate practice – which is effortful – and “flow” – which is effortless.  Lots of deliberate practice leads to increasing experiences of flow.
• The hugely important balance between being challenging and supportive that  parents, coaches, mentors must find to develop grit in others.

My challenges to her position, as I understood it:

• I found her grit scale based on self-assessment to be less than adequate.   We tend to compare ourselves to others we know, and in each judgment, I questioned “compared to what?”  It is easy to have over-inflated, or under-appreciated views of oneself.
• While I appreciate her advocacy of deliberate practice, I felt she under-appreciated the value of constant continuous, if not necessarily focused practice as an element of grit.  Staying with something for years, even if not particularly focused in one’s practice toward becoming great or mastering the activity, also demands commitment and grit.  I appreciate that quality because that’s me in most of what I do – golf, swimming, playing the fiddle, triathlons, and more.  I believe there is grit in staying with the habit of practice and pursuing one’s activity, through thick and thin, even if one doesn’t have the energy to truly focus on effortful, deliberate practice.
• She also doesn’t mention the down sides of very gritty people who through their grit pursue excellence in one activity, but miss the joys of a wide variety of activities. She doesn’t discuss the opportunity costs of being a “paragon of grit.”
• I wish she’d addressed the grit required to overcome bureaucratic or cultural intransigence.   There is a special type of tenacity and perseverance that is necessary to get any large organization to change or adopt a new program, unless the organization is forced to change by powerful outside forces.  This type of grit requires a level of patience and emotional intelligence that is not addressed in her formula, which focuses mostly on personal performance.  Many of the changes that have had the most dramatic effects on peoples lives have come because of the passion, grit, and perseverance of a few people in the face of cultural and bureaucratic opposition – eg, civil rights movement, women’s suffrage, gay rights, establishment of US SOCOM, etc.
• I know some people who are not at all achievement oriented, but are very relationship oriented and are very happy and well adjusted.  For example, the amazing woman I’m married to.  I appreciate (more than most I believe) the advantages of grit, but I also appreciate that at least in some cases, it may be over-rated.  Duckworth does address in her conclusion that grit may not be the most important character virtue, but it is very much an American model to judge a people, organization, and cultural success largely by where and how they have excelled in measurable or competitive activities. I accept that family, relationships, and sense of community may be more important to some.

Here is an interesting article  by NPR in which Angela Duckworth responds to criticisms to Grit, and an article in The Atlantic Monthly with the provocative title “Is Grit Overrated?”  

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Below is a brief summary of the book, chapter by chapter for my review when I return to this book, which I expect to many times.

Chapter 1 -Showing Up:   Reminded me of Woody Allen’s line that 90% of life is simply showing up.  She makes the point that scores on her grit self-assessment test bore no relationship to IQ nor to great resumes, which often seem to reflect innate talent.  And yet grit scores were much more closely aligned to success in completing arduous training programs (1st year West Point, Army SF training) than most other selection criteria. Grit is different from talent.  Talent is potential.  What we do with it depends on grit.

Chapter 2 – Distracted by Talent: This chapter reiterates what I’ve read in Mindset and Bounce that though we have a bias toward natural talent, this distracts us from what really makes a difference – the grit to make it mean something.  Effort counts twice.

Chapter 3 – Effort Counts Twice:  Unlike Dweck’s Mindset, she does give talent its due,  but noted that effort and grit count for much more. Talent is merely potential.  Grit is what actualizes it.  She has a graph that says that Talent x Effort = Skill, and Skill x Effort=Achievement.  Effort figures into the calculation twice.

Chapter 4 – How Gritty are you?:  Grit is more about stamina – consistency over time – than intensity. She offers a version of her “grit scale” that she developed for her study at West Point.  It is a self-assessment.  She distinguishes between passion and enduring devotion – between enthusiasm, which she says is common, and endurance which she says is rare.

• This chapter introduces us to Pete Carrol of the Seattle Seahawks and his philosophy toward grit. Also she talks about focus on a top-level goal and the need to set mid-level and low-level goals to reach that top-level goal. She also notes the need to have the wisdom to change low and mid-level goals if they aren’t getting one to that top-level goal. This is where grit becomes problematic and requires judgment – to know when to give up on intermediate level goals in the interest of the top-level goal. “The higher level the goal, the more it makes sense to be stubborn.” 74
• She also offered an assessment of some of the greatest “geniuses” in history and found that there were four qualities that distinguished the best from the rest: two were reflections of passion, two were reflections of perseverance.

Chapter 5 Grit Grows: She discusses how grit evolves and grows as we get older, “…that indeed, grit grows as we figure out our life philosophy, learn to dust ourselves off after rejection and disappointment.”

PART 2 Growing Grit from the Inside Out  Four qualities that mature “paragons of grit” have demonstrated that led to great achievement: Interest ,  Practice, a sense of Purpose, Hope.

Chapter 6 – Interest: First one must have some interest in something, and that interest serves as the seed which over time, with practice and commitment, can grow into  passion.  I like how this chapter reinforces a great line from Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs fame) who argued AGAINST the idea of following your passion – advice which stalls so many people who are looking for something worthwhile.  He said, “Don’t follow your passion, but take it with you wherever you go.”  Duckworth says, “Passion for your work is a little bit of discovery, followed by a lot of development, and then a lifetime of deepening.”  103

Chapter 7: Practice: As in Mindset and Bounce, she emphasizes not just quantity of time on task, but quality of time on task, and the importance of deliberate practice – reaching toward “stretch goals.”  She makes the point that deliberate practice takes effort and is often uncomfortable – sometimes supremely effortful. She says that most “experts” can only handle 1 hour of deliberate practice before needing a break.  She advocates studying the science of practice and offers suggestions.

• A fascinating part of this chapter is where she contrasts deliberate practice, which she identifies with grit, with flow.  “Deliberate practice is carefully planned,  and flow is spontaneous.  Because deliberate practice requires working where challenges exceed skill, and flow is more commonly experienced when challenge and skill are in balance….deliberate practice is exceptionally effortful, and flow is by definition, effortless” 129

Chapter 8- Purpose: After people find something they love to do and enjoy practicing it in order to develop their skill, most find that to stay motivated over time, they need a greater good that pursuing that interest serves.  Most start out with a self-centered  purpose (this feels good and is fun) to an other-centered purpose (this activity can serve a greater good.) “Purpose required a second revelation: ‘I personally can make a difference.'” 163

Chapter 9 – Hope:   She identifies two kinds of hope: 1. Hope without responsibility – a yearning for a sunnier tomorrow – where the onus is on God or the Universe to make things  better. 2. Hope with responsibility – grit depends on the expectation/belief that our own efforts can improve our future.  “The Hope that gritty people have has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with getting up again.” 169  She talks about suffering where we have no sense of control, which can lead to learned helplessness, and contrasts that with learned optimism.  She gives examples of people who are taught a fixed, pessimistic, fatalistic view of life, versus those who are taught that they can overcome adversity with their own efforts.  Her “paragons of grit” explain events and setbacks optimistically.  Quite a bit of this chapter is about Carol Dweck and Growth Mindset and how attribution of success to effort rather than fate or talent are key qualities of grit.  Hope:  “Just keep working hard and learning, and it will all work out.”  187

PART 3: Growing Grit from the Outside In

Chapter 10- Parenting for Grit: The main points from this chapter are that in order to develop grit in a child, the  parent must 1) find the proper balance between challenging and supporting the child, 2) that surrogate parents, in the “ecosystem” of adults that influence a persons life, can play a huge role in challenging and supporting a child.  One of the main examples she offers is of Steve Young, whose parents epitomized the “tough” and the “love” in “tough love.”  Parents must stress and exemplify the importance of  what it means to “commit.”

Chapter 11 – The playing fields of grit:  She stresses that activities that develop grit in young people should involve an adult in charge -ideally one who is not a parent, but also is wise, challenging and supportive.  And these activities should be  designed to cultivate interest, practice, purpose, and hope.  These activities could be anything from dance, to the arts, to sports – doing hard things that interest them.  These extra-curricular activities need to be structured, skill-focused, and (wise) adult-guided.  And she says, these activities need to be pursued for at least 2 years.  There is too much temptation to quit after 1 year. Stay for at least 2.  She emphasizes purposeful, continuous commitment to certain types of activities (in high school) versus sporadic efforts in diverse areas.  “Following through on our commitment while we grow up both requires grit and at the same time builds it.”  233  Grit takes practice.

• She refers to how she grew up in her family with “The Hard Thing Rule” and  she strongly advocates using some version it to develop grit in children.  Parents must comply and lead by example.  The Hard Thing Rule has 3 parts:
  • 1. Everyone has to do a hard thing.
  • 2.You can quit, but not until the season is over, the tuition payment is up, or some other natural stopping point has arrived.
  • 3. You get to pick your own hard thing.

Chapter 12 –  A Culture of Grit:  “The bottom line on culture and grit is: If you want to be grittier, find a gritty culture and join it.  If you’re a leader, and you want the people in your organization to be grittier, create a gritty culture.”  245  She says you must make a categorical –  complete – commitment to your culture – not to be half-way, or a sort-of member.  She refers to the reciprocal effect of a team’s particular culture on the person who joins it.  When we become part of a great, or gritty culture, we ask ourselves “Who am I? What does a person like me do in a situation like this?” “Thinking of ourselves as a person who overcomes great adversity often leads to behavior that confirms that self-conception.” 252.  And she talks about how West Point has evolved from an “attritional model” to a “developmental model.”  Grit is about “finishing strong.”  Anyone can begin strong.

Chapter 13- Conclusion:  Grit goes hand in hand with happiness and well-being, no matter  how she measures it. She addresses what having “too much grit” might mean, and notes that grit may not be the most important thing in one’s character, but perhaps is the most important thing for achieving one’s goals. She says that “character is plural”  – there are many virtues that encompass it.  She breaks character down, as Aristotle did, into intra-personal, interpersonal, and intellectual, and places grit in the intra-personal category.

Some useful quotes from Grit – with page numbers from the hardcover edition

I grew less and less convinced that talent was destiny and more and more intrigued by the returns generated by effort. 20

There is a gap between potential and its actualization. 21

During the next several years of teaching, I grew less and less convinced that talent was destiny and more and more intrigued by the returns generated by effort.  20

“With everything perfect, ” Nietzsche wrote, “we do not ask how it came to be.”  Instead, “we rejoice in the present fact as though it came out of the ground by magic.”  39

In other word, mythologizing natural talent lets us all off the hook.  39

Most of us become more conscientious, confident, caring, and calm with life experience. 86

To do anything well, you have to overextend yourself. Necessity is the mother of adaptation. 87

Lectures don’t have half the effect of consequences. 89

Interests are not discovered through introspection. Instead, interests are triggered by interaction with the outside world. 104

Interests thrive when there is a crew of encouraging supporters, including parents, teachers, coaches and peers. 105

Half of grit is perseverance…but..nobody works doggedly on something they don’t find intrinsically interesting. 106

For parents: Before hard work comes play.  106

(Quoting Jeff Bezos’ mother) “It is not important that I understand everything. It’s important that I listen.”

For the beginner, novelty is anything that hasn’t been encountered before. For the expert, novelty is nuance.  114

Deliberate practice is behavior, and flow is an experience. 131

Deliberate practice is for preparation, and flow is for performance.  132.

Gritty people do more deliberate practice and experience more flow. 131

There was a small but growing body of scientific evidence that happiness wasn’t just the consequence of performing well at work, it might also be an important cause. 177

Following through on hard things teaches a young person powerful, transferable lessons.  236

…without directly experiencing the connection between effort and reward, animals, whether they’re rats or people, default to laziness.   240

(Quoting Dan Chambliss) “The real way to become a great swimmer is to join a great team.”246

(Quoting Dan Chambliss) “There’s a hard way to get grit and an easy way.  The hard way is to do it by yourself.  The easy way is to use conformity – the basic human drive to fit in – because if you’re a round a lot of people who are gritty, you’re going to act grittier.” 247

Quoting George Bernard Shaw:  “The true joy in life is to be a force of fortune instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” 258

To be gritty is to invest, day after week after year, in challenging practice. To be gritty is to fall down seven times, and rise eight.

Why this Book:  My son suggested that everyone in the family read this book before our family reunion, and discuss it when we get together.

Summary in 3 Sentences:  Based on the real story of mountain man Hugh Glass being mauled by a bear, then robbed and abandoned by two men who were charged with taking care of him. He recovers and the book describes his survival and subsequent effort to exact revenge.  Beyond the mauling and a bit of the survival, it is actually a much different story than the movie – and much better.

My Impressions:  I enjoyed this book much more than I expected to.  I thought the movie was rather overdone, one unlikely dramatic scene after another, and typically of Hollywood, it had to have the climactic, tension-resolving ending, that was of course, not real life.  The book was much more interesting.

The most interesting character was Captain Hardy, who struggled with the moral dilemma of his obligation to Glass which he rightly saw as in conflict with his obligation to the  other men on his expedition, to his employer, and to his mission.  We visit Captain Hardy several times throughout the book and partly empathize with his sense of being a magnet for misfortune.  We also got to know Hugh Glass and his journey that led him to being on that expedition and up to that fateful encounter with the bear.  And of course, we struggle with him as he barely survives after being abandoned, and his epic journey to find the men who had abandoned him.  At one point, I was reminded of the book (and movie) The Martian, also about a man abandoned in what seemed like a hopeless situation.  In both books, it seemed that as soon as things started looking up, our protagonist would suffer another setback that would seem the final blow, only to bounce back with grit and ingenuity, to live to fight another day.

The book give us a fascinating look at early 19th century America, juxtaposing the well organized and civilized society on the East Coast, with the primal world west of St Louis with the pirate infested waters and the hazards of shipping in the Caribbean.  We learn of the world of the fur speculators and the mountain men who they were and how they lived. The mountain men were the fur companies’ agents, living weeks away from civilization, trapping mostly beaver, while trading trinkets, iron goods and alcohol with the natives – for more pelts.   We also get see the uneasy alliance between the mountain men, and the Native Americans Indians who develop an anxious relationship with the bearded men, who provided weapons, tools, horses, in exchange for what for them were easy to obtain furs, but whose increasing presence and very different values threatened their way of life.  The Indian tried to use the whites to provide goods and as allies against their enemies, but it was a doomed alliance.

With the help of Indians who befriended him, he does reconnect with the expedition which abandoned him, but the resolution of his revenge is not as satisfying as it was in the movie -but more realistic.  The book concludes with a fascinating historical note in which the author shares his struggles in researching the historical basis for the story, the mixing of fact and legend, and he openly shares where he used literary license to put meat on the bones of the story.

Where the story fell short I believed was that we didn’t get to know Glass as well as I would have liked.  Understanding that when he was focused on survival, that was all that was going on with him. After he was returned to the company of his fellows (I won’t say civilization, since it was merely a small outpost on a river) and was no longer struggling to get through each day, Glass became a cardboard figure.  We are treated to descriptions of what happened, but not to his internal life -what he was thinking, feeling, reflecting upon.  I sensed that Glass had more depth than simply a surviving vengeance machine, but I would like to have gotten to know him better. He was an impressive man.

Why this book: I had read this book about two years ago, but needed to re-read it prior to presenting to a company that is seeking to change its culture.

Summary in 3 Sentences:  Cultures are complicated and are built over time, based on shared experiences, that lead to shared beliefs, which motivate specific and general actions, that yield the cultural results.  The book explains not only these four key levels of what the authors call the “Results Pyramid” but it also offers a process for deliberately changing the culture – in order to get different results.  The process takes time, patience, focused leadership and deliberate effort, that must begin at the bottom of the pyramid – experiences – ultimately to achieve improved results at the top.

My Impressions: This below graphic sums up the book- C1 is current culture, E1 are current experiences in that culture which lead to B1 beliefs, which lead to A1 actions, which yield R1 results.  In order to get – or achieve – significantly different results over the long run – R2 – a culture has to change the experiences that underlie the beliefs which underlie the actions.   This makes a lot of sense to me.  The authors note how most leaders want to change the way people act without changing the way they think – they seek to get compliance, not commitment; involvement but not investment; immediate progress, but not lasting performance.

Below is NOT a review of the book. These are my notes, mostly quotes with page numbers from the paperback, which I used to review the book prior to giving my presentation.  The notes/quotes are my major highlights through chapter 7. These quotes will be useful to me  when I review this insightful book in the future, and may be of assistance to  you as you consider reading the book.

Notable Quotes/Key points:

Leaders must create the needed culture.  The culture produces the results. The most effective culture is a Culture of ACCOUNTABILITY.  16

Either you manage your culture, or it will manage you. 16

…you must ask yourself an all-important question: If everyone in the organization continues to think and act in the same manner as they do today, can you expect to achieve the results you need to achieve? 17

We know from long experience that the leadership team must shoulder the responsibility of shifting the culture. 17

Above the line are Steps to Accountability, to See it, Own It, Solve It, and Do It.  Below the line is the all -too-familiar blame game or victim cycle.  20

…Below the Line, we become more focused on what we cannot do rather than on what we can do….we set our sights on the obstacles we face, not the actions we can take to get past those obstacles…21

…The entire organization moves away from the mistaken idea that accountability means “getting caught failing” and toward a more positive approach that empowers people to begin “starring in the solution.” 23

The most compelling reason to work on your culture?  Culture produces results. 29

RESULTS

..all employees could connect the dots between their dailywork and the R2 they needed to achieve.  32

..essential that you determine in advance if your desired results really are R2.  We suggest using four criteria:

• Difficulty, more effort to achieve than past results
• Direction, a significant change in direction for the organization
• Deployment, requires large scale deployment or redeployment of people  or other resources.
• Development, A new capability or core competency.  35

…three essential steps to implementing the first tier of the Results Pyramid and forming R2 to accelerate a change in the culture;

1. Define R2
2. Introduce R2 throughout the organization
3. Create accountability to achieve R2.

Managing a culture is a process, not an event. 42

When you effectively create accountability to achieve R2, people start to see their purposes and roles differently , defining their jobs in terms of the results they need to achieve rather than their job descriptions.  43

The act of claiming accountability for current and past results creates a powerful, positive experience for everyone in a company because it reinforced the idea that “if we are responsible for where we are, we can also r responsible for where we want to to go.”44

It bears repeating:  Your culture produces your results.  If you need a change in results, then you need a change in culture.  48

ACTION

Speeding up the cultural change means getting everyone to internalize the need for change and ask, “What else can I do to demonstrate actions more consistent with A2?  What else can I do to achieve R2 results. 50

Bear in mind that culture changes 1 person at a time. 50

…an impetus to change (the input) causes one of three kinds of change (the output) to occur:

• temporary,
• transitional – incremental modifications ot exiseting patterns and consistent happy them over time.  A matter of degree rather than a fundamental change…
• transformational – a significant shift in the way people think and act. 54

More often than not, you will not accomplish full-scale cultural transition without making a number of level 3 changes in the way people think and act.  54

During a time of organizational transition, we frequently see people at every level playing not to lose, rather than playing to win…when people worry more about protecting themselves rather than creating C2.  56

Seven ineffective change practices:

1. Distribute the corporate values statement
2. Restructure or reorganize
3. Hire or Fire Someone
4. Change the reward system
5. Form a team and isolate it from the culture
6. Promote someone
7. Rewrite policy.   57

Three classic mistakes that leaders make during a time of cultural transition…

1. Management teams attempt to prescribe A2
2. Not supporting early A2 adopters
3. Management focussed only on the Actions level of the Results Pyramid

At first, A2 runs counter to the C1 culture 62

The classic trap of trying to  improve results by focusing solely on what people do.  While that seems to work in some cases, it never works when what you need is a fundamental shift in culture in order to produce R2   63   (training the Iraqi National Army)

(what you need is) a shift from activity-based to results-based management practices.  65

BELIEFS

Nothing, absolutely nothing, gets people to change the way they act faster than getting them to change the way they think. 66

…experience has shown that most often people bring their old ways of thinking, their B1 beliefs, into a new job.  71

Not all beliefs are equal:
1. Category 1 beliefs do not reflect a high degree of belief bias. Easy to change.

2. Category 2 beliefs steeped in experience, are strongly held, fully embraced and not easily abandoned

3. Category 3 beliefs are at the very foundation of a persons values – moral, ethical, principles.73

Category 1 and 2 beliefs reflect “how we do things around here.”74

Category 1 and 2 beliefs are central to your organization’s culture and are reinforced and transmitted daily in an efficient, almost naturally occurring, self-perpetuating process that requires minimal direction and limited nurturing. 75

What would you want people saying to new employees when they seek guidance about how things work in your organization?  76

Our research shows that the more consciously and deliberately you approach the task of identifying B2 beliefs, the more effectively you can write your cultural beliefs statement.  82

Employees attitude about the job and about the company are the two factors that predict the behavior in front of the customer.85

Responsibility for creating an environment in which people buy into and live the cultural beliefs falls on the broad shoulders of the company’s leadership. 87

To foster the adoption of B2 beliefs, management must create experiences that will convince people to change their beliefs  and begin thinking differently about their daily work.  This is perhaps leadership’s greatest  challenge…88

EXPERIENCES

We feel confident that when you focus on the foundation of the results pyramid and provide the right experience, people will change the way they think. If you change the way they think, then you can change the culture; and when  you change the culture, you change the game.  89

Once employees translated experiences into shared beliefs, no one needed to tell them what to do.90

Keep in mind that for good or bad, you are already creating experiences E1 and beliefs B1 and a culture C1, and you will continue to do so, whether you do it consciously or not.  Providing experiences that foster the right beliefs can take more than a little imageination  and effort.  91

Four Principles:

1. People validate rather than invalidate their current believes by filtering new experiences thought the lens of their current beliefs. We call this selective interpretation.
2. People often cling to old beliefs and only reluctantly surrender them, falling prey to what we refer to as belief bias (confirmation bias.)
3. People fail to take responsibility or accountability for their beliefs, believing instead that things they believe are natural and logical and obviousl
4. The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior.92

Very few experiences will “stand on their own two feet.” You need to prop them up with the right interpretation. 93

1. Type 1 experiences -> Immediate insight
2. Type 2 experiences -> need to be interpreted ignorer to form the desired beliefs.
3. Type 3 experiences  -> will not affect prevailing beliefs because they are perceived as insignificant
4. Type 4 experiences -> will always be misinterpreted regardless of amount or quality of interpretation.93

When it comes to experiences that instill beliefs, never underestimate the power of conscious and deliberate interpretation.98

Four steps to providing E2 experiences:  Plan it -> provide it -> ask about it -> interpret it —-start over. 102

When it comes to living the Cultural Beliefs, who is the most important person who needs to change?  Of course the right answer is “I am.” The most important E2 experience that you can provide is the experience of out living the Cultural Beliefs, demonstrating their application in the way you do your work each day.109

ALIGNING CULTURE

Neither meaningful nor raid culture change will occur unless the experience beliefs, and actions are aligned with the and reinforce R2 results.114

*Alignment is common beliefs and conceited action in collective pursuit of a clear result. 115

Culture is not something you can do once and then leave alone. It always needs to be managed relative to there results (Rx) you are working to achieve. (like Trust)  Again, managing the culture is not an event; it is a process, and maintaining alignment among all the parts with the Results Pyramid requires constant and vigilant attention. 118

Forces that can push you out of alignment: territorialism and self-protection, conflicting priorities, lack of resources, short term operational pressures, C1 experiences. 120

You must keep an ever watchful ey on these threats. 121

Critical Mass for change:  “Critical Mass” refers to the smallest mount of her right mrerial needed to create and sustain a nuclear chain reaction. it’s not just the  right material that sparks the nuclear reaction; it’s the correct quantity of that material. To see off a “culture chain reaction: you need to form a critical mass of people who take ownership for the change process and buy in to both R2 and the Cultural beliefs associated with it.122

Making the case for Change means ensuring that the case for Change captures the reality the business environment, your competitive position, and the requirements of stakeholders.  123

Accelerating cultural transition is a leader-led endeavor in a  team-participative environment. 127

The Leadership alignment process:  124-131

• Step One: Participation – get the appropriate people involved.
• Step Two: Accountability – identify who will make the decisions
• Step Three: Discussion – ensure that people speak up and are heard
• Step Four: Ownership – promote the decision as your own.
• Step Five: Communication – be consistent with the message.
• Step Six: Follow-up – check in and test for alignment.

For the transition to succeed, an organization needs more than one or two Champions.  128

Alignment is a process, not an event….Either you will mange the culture, or it will manage you.  132

APPLYING THE THREE CULTURE MANAGEMENT TOOLS

THE THREE TOOLS – Focused Feedback, Focused Storytelling, and Focused Recognition. 133

For good or ill, these stories transmit culture in a powerful way and have a significant impact on people at every level of the organization . As a result, stories are among the strangers influences on the bottom half of the Results Pyramid. 144

Every story you tell using Focused Storytelling includes  three parts: a beginning , middle, and end.  You begin by referencing the Cultural Belief title that corresponds to the story, using specific words to frame the context of the story. 144

The story ends by addressing the impact on the key R2 results. 145

(Regarding Focused Recognition) The positive reinforcement boosts moral and get people looking for what’s working when it comes to making the cultural shift happen…the recognition begins by identifying the Cultural Belief the individual has demonstrated…. 149

Winston Churchill once said: “First we shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.” 151

Why this book:  Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs fame) strongly recommended the entire John D. MacDonald Travis McGee series in his podcast interview with Tim Ferriss.  This recommendation was subsequently reinforced by my friend David Johnson who has read all of MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels (and so much more) and who said he envied me the opportunity to read these for the first time. This particular one is short, fascinating, gripping, and a fun read – I’m a slow reader and I read it in two days.  A page turner.

My Impressions:  If All the King’s Men was a literary gourmet meal, then The Deep Blue Good-by is gourmet Fast Food.  It is a mystery novel – one of the 21  books in MacDonald’s Travis McGee series, written in the first person voice of  Travis McGee. McGee  might be described as a cross between Jimmy Buffett and Jim Rockford (the James Garner character in The Rockford Files TV series of a few decades ago.)  Travis McGee is something of a boat bum in his 30s, who lives on a yacht he won in a poker game, claiming to be enjoying his retirement in installments.  He accepts work when he runs out of cash – and his specialty is helping people recoup money they’ve lost unfairly or through some chicanery.  If/when he succeeds, his cut is  half of what is left after his expenses.

Written in the early sixties, the context is late 1950s/early 1960s America along the east coast and waterways of south Florida.  The story is very well written, fun, and through the  the voice of the Travis McGee character, John D.MacDonald shares his keen and (I thought) interesting insights about American culture, men and women (especially women) and people in general.

It’s easy to like Travis McGee.  He is un-pretentious, easy-going, un-ambitious, non-materialistic, suffers no fools, principled and compassionate.  He has a good head, a good heart, and the urges of a healthy male in his 30s.  His judgment and decision making balance these three in a way that most men would envy.  He appreciates, and is respectful and solicitous of the women he meets, and in this novel, his clients and many of the supporting characters are women.

The Deep Blue Good-by is an interesting story that takes us from the air-bridge between China, Burma and India in WW2, where airmen made small fortunes smuggling gold, cash and gems, while moving men and equipment between theaters during the war, to the sad and vulnerable world of women barely-getting-by on the south Florida coast. The antagonist is a charming, glib, and attractive former felon and socio-path who seduces and preys on the most vulnerable women he finds who can serve his needs.  Our “bad guy”  steals a fortune from one of these women in a way that law enforcement could not help, and so Travis McGee agrees to see what he can do to help her recover what he can.  Travis McGee is also the type of man who just can’t sit by while the vulnerable are manipulated and exploited.  He is a courageous, humble and principled protagonist who at the same time is very much at home in the partying and somewhat debauched world of boat owners and marinas of south Florida.

It is a rollicking good story, with sympathetic and interesting characters, and as I’ve noted, extremely well written.  I am a new fan and will read more of Travis McGee’s adventures.

A few memorable passages:

I am wary of the whole dreary deadening structured mess we have built into such a glittering top-heavy structure that there is nothing left to see but the glitter, and the brute routines of maintaining it.

Reality is in the enduring eyes, the unspoken dreadful accusation in the enduring eyes of a worn young woman who looks at you, and hopes for  nothing.

I nursed a drink, made myself excruciatingly amiable, suitably mysterious and witty in the proper key, and carefully observed the group relationship until I was able to identify two possibles.

“If it’s pure recreation dear, without claims or agreements or deathless vows, I’m at your service. I like you.  I like you enough to keep from trying to fake you into anything, even though, at the moment, it’s one hell of a temptation. But I think you would have to get too deeply involved in your own justifications because, as I said, you are a complex woman. And a strong woman. And I am no part of your future, not in any emotional way…Now you know the rules, it’s still your decision.  Just holler.”

There is as much danger in overestimating as in underestimating the quality of the opposition.

Behind the agreeable grin he was as uncompromising as a hammer. Beast in his grin-mask.

Had I done any pleading  or begging, she would have slammed the door.  So I stood easy, mildly smiling. It’s a relaxed area.  There is code for all the transients.  If you are presentable, unhurried, vaguely indifferent, it is a challenge.

Bless them all, the forlorn little rabbits. They are the displaced persons of our emotional culture. They are ravenous for romance, yet settle for what they call making out…They yearn for security, but all they can have is what they make for themselves, chittering little flocks of them in the restaurants and stores, talking of style and adornment, dreaming of the terribly sincere strangers who will come along and lift them out of the gypsy life of the two bit tip and the unemployment, cut a tall cake with them, swell them up with sassy babies, and guide them masterfully into the shoal water of the electrified house where everybody brushes after every meal.

Why this book: Selected by my literature reading group. This was my 3rd time reading this book, and each time I’ve found it more insightful.  I find it very enlightening to read literature coming out of prisons, POW camps, by people who find themselves in very difficult environments, and reading their accounts of how they not only survive, find meaning in their suffering, and in some cases, even thrive.

My Impressions:   One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a fascinating study of human nature.     Similar to other books I’ve read about  surviving the brutality of prison, like Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, Stockale’s In Love and War, Clavell’s  King Rat,  Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North (which I reviewed here) One Day is a testament to the strength of the human spirit as it tries to hold on to a shred of dignity as it struggles to survive.  We see how Ivan Denisovich Shukhov and others in the gulag hold on to and assert their last remaining sense of human dignity in their resistance to a constant regimen of scarcity and brutality imposed by other human beings. In spite of the brutality, the suffering, the harshness of the environment, this is a very upbeat book.

This book is indeed about one day – from early wake up to finally falling asleep at the end of a long day, in Stalin’s post World War 2 Soviet gulag in Siberia.   But this one day can be seen in many ways as a metaphor for the life of all of us – only in a much more austere, and punishing setting. It is all men – women are only present as memories, or in some cases, as spouses or relatives who support these men with packages sent from home.   We get to know men who are cruel, selfish and self serving, and others who are honorable,  spiritual, noble and courageous.  Our protagonist,  Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is a practical survivor who also seeks to retain some sense of personal honor. In his description of  what he needed to do to survive as a PoW in North Vietnam, Adm Jim Stockale’s borrowed Solzhenitsyn’s description of Shukhov, and described how he became a “slow-moving, cagey prisoner.”   Shukhov, like Stockade, had learned to accept and make the best of what he could not change, while being alert and resourceful enough to take advantage of what few opportunities might come his way.

Almost daily,  Shukhov faced the moral challenge of how far he would go to survive – whether and to what degree he would participate in the corruption, stealing and  manipulation of others – not just the guards and trustees, but sometimes also of his fellow prisoners. For some in the camp, life was a simple and uncompromising fight for personal survival – every man for himself, no room for  compassion or generosity that might put one’s few advantages and chances for survival at risk.  Some collaborated with the guards and prison administrators against their fellow prisoners for advantages that would serve their needs.  Many other prisoners however, collaborated with and supported each other in defiance of the impersonal and brutal conditions.

Ivan Denisovich was cleverer than most in finding and working the seams of the system, cozying up to those who could help him with things he needed and wanted, and protecting himself from those who would threaten or use him to their ends.  In contrast to Shukhov, we see the former Soviet Navy captain, relatively new to the gulag, who sought to apply his civilized code of personal honor,  sense of dignity and responsibility in a very different, uncivilized context.  He suffered for his naïveté at the hands of the brutal guards and trustees. We are left wondering if, or how long, he would survive.

Here are a few bullets that occurred to me in reading this short, powerful book.

• One Day is a study in the concept of loyalty.  Shukhov and his work crew are extremely loyal to the prisoner who heads their crew. Though their crew boss could be harsh, he is clever enough to get advantages for the crew and will take risks to protect them. And they reciprocate by taking care of him.  Loyalty within the crew is to a small circle of trusted mates. As we do in our own lives, Shukhov had concentric circles of loyalty – with only a very few in his inner circle of “friends” to whom he felt a greater degree of compassion and obligation than to those in the outer circles.
• We see the  satisfaction that can come of working together, even in seemingly meaningless tasks. There is a memorable scene in which the work crew is hitting-on-all-cylinders building a wall which has no importance to them other than as a project they were assigned.  They  decide to do it well.  I was reminded of the Bridge Over the River Kwai. Shukhov and his fellow prisoners forget the cold and brutality as they lost themselves in the satisfaction of working together for a common goal – to build the wall well.  Time, place, cold, and suffering all disappeared – for a few hours.
• Food was always key.  There was never enough.  When they were very cold and very hungry, nothing else seemed to matter – men became beasts – cowed and primal – willing to do almost anything for food and warmth.  Those who cooked and served the meager rations always got more than their share, and gave what was left to the others. They took care of themselves first – like many who have power and advantage the world over.
• In this very primal world, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is very evident.  Only a couple of times do we see indicators of men who, in spite of the brutality of the conditions, had the discipline and sense of honor to hold fast to values above meeting their most basic needs. We briefly get to know a man who “…you could see his mind was set on one thing – never to give in <to the downward spiral of brutality.>  He didn’t put his eight ounces <of bread> down in all the filth on the table like everyone else but laid it on a clean little piece of rag that’d been washed over and over again.”
• One day at a time. Shukhov realized that to think about the future was detrimental to survival.  One event at a time; one day at a time, enjoy what ephemeral victories and satisfactions might come one’s way, but don’t dwell on them. Don’t think about the future or how much time they have left in the gulag.   I was reminded of what SEAL trainees are told about how to survive and succeed in Hell Week.

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov’s “one day” had begun with him feeling ill, but not being permitted entry into the infirmary.  But at the end of that day, Shukhov lay in his bunk celebrating his small victories of the day. “Nothing has spoiled the day and it had been almost happy.”  And though he didn’t think about it, he had 3,653 days left in his sentence, which he also knew could be – he almost expected to be –  extended arbitrarily with no justification.

Though this was my third time reading One Day,  I got so much more out of it this time.  It would be very interesting to discuss Shukhov’s  “one day in the life” as a metaphor for much of what each of us face and experience in our own much less demanding, much more comfortable and civilized lives.  My reading group didn’t give this book the attention it deserved because it was a tag-on to another much longer, more involved wonderful book, All the King’s Men.

Why this book:  Selected by my literature reading group. I had read it for the first time  about 7 years ago, and loved it then.  I was uncertain the group would like it, since it is rather long (~600 pages) and not very fast moving, but I enthusiastically endorsed it, since I recall how it affected me then. It was even more powerful for me this time.  And I hope to read it again in a few years. It is very much worth it to read the restored edition, which rescues R.P. Warren’s original work from the politically correct and often uninspired modifications of the original editors.

My Impressions:  I place this near the top of the list of books I’ve ever read.   The writing is beautiful,  the story compelling, the characters have depth and complexity and are believable – they come to life.   It is not fast-food reading –  more  a gourmet meal, to be savored slowly, when one’s appetite is ready for the best we can offer it. I could not read it when I was tired; not that the writing was complex or difficult – on the contrary.  But reading tired, I would miss the nuances and poetic descriptions of people, places, things, events. One shouldn’t go to the Louvre when one is tired and cranky.  One should visit the Louvre when one is well rested, alert, has had a cup of coffee,  is in a good mood and energized.  That’s how I felt about reading this book. I made a point to read it mostly in the morning.

The principle character around whom the novel is based is a fictional version of Huey Long, the infamous charismatic and demagogic populist governor of Louisiana in the 1930’s.  But he is not the protagonist of the novel.  The protagonist is Jack Burden, one of the governor’s personal assistants, and the novel is really about Burden’s experience of the corruption endemic to the politics of Louisiana at the time, and how he, being close to the power, played in and around the horse trading, the corruption,  and the exercise of power and political ambition.

But most important and interesting to me was Jack Burden’s  maturing process in his  relationships with key people in his life outside of the political arena – his mother, father, mentor, his childhood best friend, and his childhood sweetheart.  And his own moral development and understanding of the world, as he moved from romantic idealist, to cynicism and then to a nothing-matters nihilism, finally to an accommodation with love and man’s better nature.  Robert Penn Warren is nothing if not a realist and he demands that we and his characters see things as they are – flawed, though often striving to be good – in a clumsy, often self-centered  and sometimes tragic way.  Betrayal and forgiveness, hubris and the fall, idealism and disappointment, corruption and redemption are all part of Jack Burden’s experience and the story he relates to us as narrator.

The writing was like nothing I’ve ever read before.  Not complex, but evocative.  From the very beginning, the writing and the style pulled me into Louisiana of the 1930s and I could almost sense and feel the characters.  His descriptions were poetic but not overdone.  I offer a few samples below.  I can’t say enough about how much I enjoyed his writing.  In the last several years I have read other prose pieces written by poets, (Maya Angelou and Robert Service) and each time I have loved the writing.  Robert Penn Warren however wasn’t just a poet.  He won the Pulitzer prize twice for poetry and was the United States first poet-laureate.  Yeah, he could craft an image, and pull you into it.

All the King’s Men is mostly about flawed men. But there are some very interesting strong multi-dimensional women in the book as well.  Women will not be disappointed.

For me a possible downside was that there was not much real joy in the book.  All the characters were somehow struggling with their own humanity – struggling to be as good as they hoped to be, as others wanted them to be, but not living up to their own or other’s expectations.  His characters have to live a type of double life -pretending to be something they aren’t, while striving to be better than they are.   And Warren would have us believe that this is how all -or most of us  – are, and that this is simply part of the American experience.  His characters struggled to understand and deal with the challenges they were facing,  trying often valiantly, to achieve something of value.  I was edified and occasionally even inspired, but there wasn’t much joy or  exuberance.

There are no real heroes in this book – all the characters were very human and flawed – no one was particularly good, nor particularly bad.   You might say this book is not about the struggle between good and evil, rather between better and worse – in the simple striving hearts of the people who populate this story.

All the King’s Men does indeed have a positive message and an ending I didn’t expect.  It is a beautifully written, thoughtful, and very satisfying read.

——-

A few quotes, to give you a sense of the poetry of his descriptions and the earthiness of his language (page numbers from the Mariner Books 2001 restored paperback edition – the copy you see in the picture above.)

He learned that the world is like an enormous spider web and if you touch it, however lightly, at any point, the vibration ripples to the remotest perimeter and the drowsy spider feels the tingle and is drowsy no more but springs out to fling the gossamer coils about you who have touched the web and then inject the black, numbing poison under your hide.  266

The end of man is knowledge, but there is one thing he can’t know. He can’t know whether knowledge will save him or kill him. He will be killed, all right, but he can’t know whether he is killed because of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he hasn’t got and which if he had it, would save him. 13

“That’s why I can see what the law is like. It’s like a single-bed blanket on a double bed and three folks in the bed and a cold night.  There ain’t never enough blanket to cover the case, no matter how much pulling  and hauling, and somebody’s always going to nigh catch pneumonia.”  194

There is nothing like a good book to put you to sleep with the illusion that life is rich and meaningful.  108

“…it’s up to you to give ’em something to stir ’em up and make ’em feel alive again.  Just for half an hour.  That’s what they come for. Tell ’em anything. But for Sweet Jesus’ sake don’t try to improve their minds.”  102

Her eyes were glittering like the eyes of a child when you give a nice surprise, and she laughed in a sudden throaty, tingling way. It is the way a woman laughs for happiness. They never laugh that way just when they are being polite or at a joke. A woman only laughs that way a few times in her life…..For all any of us really wants is to hear a woman laugh like that.  289

And he said: “Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something.” 268  (this is a key quote in the book, as the Huey Long character believed and repeatedly proved that he could always find something about which any one, no matter their public virtue, was ashamed, and which he could use for blackmail.)

“Its not an explanation, ” he said, and laughed again. “there ain’t any explanations. Not of anything. All you can do is point at the nature of things. If you are smart enough to  see ’em.” 269

For years I had condemned her as a woman without a heart, who loved merely power over men and the momentary satisfaction to vanity or flesh which they could give her, who lived in a strange loveless oscillation between calculation and instinct. 601

I had given my mother a present, which was a lie.  But in return she had given me a present, too, which was a truth. She gave me a new picture of herself, and that meant, in the end, a new picture of the world.  601

…and you look at the floor where now there are little parallel trails of damp sawdust the old broom left this morning when the unenthusiastic old negro man cleaned up, and the general impression is that you are alone with the Alone and it is His move.  19

Fate comes walking thought the door, and it is five-feet ten inches tall and heavyish in the chest and shortish in the leg …19

You get into bed and you shut your eyes and you think of something you did or you didn’t do, and wanted and didn’t get, or didn’t want and got, and pretty soon it doesn’t matter which, for you are asleep.  44

..their life history is a process of discovering what they really are, and not, as for you and me, sons of luck,  a process of becoming what luck makes us.  89

Well, Willie began to appear in the Chronicle in the role of the boy upon the burning deck, and the boy who put his finger in the dyke, and the boy who replies “I can” when Duty whispers low, “Thou must.”  90

…the theory of the moral neutrality of history: “History is blind, but man is not.” 606

Why this book:  We selected this book for our All American Leadership reading group, and it was I who suggested it.  It had been recommended to me by Liz Barron who said it was creating something of a stir in the world of leadership consulting.  I can see why. I have several quotes in my review below, with page numbers in parenthesis, referring to the hardcover HarperCollins 2015 edition.

My impressions: This book is meant to be provocative, and it is. The book makes two major points:

FIRST:  The things we say we want in our business leaders are not what we get – the majority of business leaders do not display the attributes that the leadership development industry promotes.  Nor are these qualities widely rewarded in the marketplace.  In looking at the reality of those who have succeeded in business,  Pfeffer states that doing the opposite of much of what the leadership industry recommends might be  more sensible.

SECOND: We have a  multibillion dollar leader development industry which he claims has been spectacularly unsuccessful in improving the general leadership in the US or elsewhere.  He points out that employee engagement has decreased, and poor leadership has increased in direct proportion to the increase in leadership seminars in Corporate America.  He shares the amazing statistic that came from one study, that 35% of US employees would forgo a substantial pay increase in exchange for seeing their boss fired.

Leadership BS addresses five attributes that Pfeffer claims are often associated with and taught to be essential to excellent leadership.  He argues that some of these attributes might actually be detrimental to effective leadership, or that they are so uncommon, that no one takes them seriously, or it is disingenuous to even promote them.  These attributes are: modesty, authenticity, truthfulness, trustworthiness, and concern for the well being of others.

He devotes a chapter to each of these attributes – and below I give you Pfeiffer’s chapter title and  what I understood to be his main point:

Modesty: Why Leaders Aren’t. “Although modesty may be valued in the leadership literature, self-promotion and assertiveness seem to produce better career results in the real world. “  (78)  Pride in oneself, self-confidence, high self-esteem and a certain degree of narcissism are almost essential to get to a leadership position of any significance.  and to succeed in it.  Leaders need to engage in activities that make them, and by extension their companies, more noticeable and noteworthy. People and organizations are drawn to the self-confident and assertive, to the grandiose and the unusual. Modesty and humility are seldom rewarded. He does recognize the value of creating the “perception” of modesty.

And yet…

Authenticity: Misunderstood and Overrated. “In fact, being authentic is pretty much the opposite of what leaders must do.  Leaders do not need to be truth themselves. Rather leaders need to be true to what the situation and what those around them want and need from them.” (87)   He emphasizes how effective leaders often need to sublimate their true feeling in the interest of their duties to the organization and to others. Good leaders must also be good actors, exuding confidence even when they may not feel it, not showing fear, emotional distress, or confusion, even if that is what they feel. They must have a public face, that may be very different from their “authentic” private face. “After all,” he asks, “what if your real self is an asshole?” (94)  “One of the most important leadership skills is the ability put on a show, to act like a leader…” (98)  Being true to the role and responsibilities of the leader is much more useful and effective than being true to one’s feelings at the moment.

And yet…

Should Leaders Tell the Truth – and Do They?  “...the evidence is quite clear that leaders (and for that matter, other people) frequently don’t tell the truth and face few to no consequences for doing so.” (122) This chapter shows how “truth” is malleable and open to different versions and interpretations, and it has many different shades.  Deception in negotiations is part of the practice of business.  Leaders are expected to shade the truth to the advantage of themselves and their constituencies.  And they are not held accountable – not blamed – when they are caught in being less than truthful.  “I misunderstood.”  “I was mistaken in my analysis.”  “My memory served me poorly.”  “That’s what I believed to be true at the time.”  “Nobody asked that question at the time.”  Pfeffer points out how our culture has developed a high tolerance for untruths – like our expectation that the used car salesman will not tell us his true best price to sell us that car.  The “truth” is negotiable, and we expect leaders to use it to play the game to win.

And yet…

Trust: Where did it go and why?  “Therefore, leaders, who first and foremost are responsible for ensuring their organization’s well-being, sometimes have to take tough actions.  Such actions can entail breaking implicit promises or even abrogating contracts, undoing things that render the leader disliked and the company distrusted.” (147)  In this chapter, Pfeffer is most ambivalent.  He certainly believes that trustworthiness is a personal virtue and can serve business leaders well, but is quick to point out that when obligations to different stakeholders conflict, we expect leaders to honor their obligations to their companies first, and in fact often to their own personal interests as well, ahead of obligations to others who may have less influence.   He said that’s what most of us expect, and it is important that we are aware of that, and protect ourselves by being very wary in whom, and how much we trust.  “…people who regularly appear on most-admired lists and give talks at leading business schools – turn their backs on commitments when it suits their interests all the time.” (152)

And yet….

Why Leaders Eat First. (the title of this chapter refers to Simon Sinek’s book, Leaders Eat Last.) “…relying on leaders’ generosity of spirit or the exhortations of the leadership literature is an ineffective and risky way to ensure that leaders take care of anyone other than themselves.” (169)  Pfeffer points out that most people feel inclined to take care of people to whom they feel a connection, and in most companies, leaders have little connection to the people who actually do the work in the company, frequently don’t really know what they do, nor understand their lives.  Their incentive packages also are geared primarily toward earnings – often short term earnings – and leaders, like most people, follow the incentives.   He advocates Boards promoting people from within, so that leaders better understand and are able to connect with their subordinates, and creating programs which expose leaders to the core of the businesses activities and those who perform them (a la TV’s  Undercover Boss.)

—-After addressing these 5 attributes Pfeffer concludes Leadership BS with two wrap up chapters:

Take Care of Yourself “…nice speeches and noble sentiments notwithstanding, leaders mostly take care of themselves first  and maybe second and third, also – regardless of what they are  supposed to do. The pious conclusion: you should do the same.” (172)   He makes the point that leaders will primarily value your future contributions to the company, and give little thought to your past contributions. He has a section on why people want to put their trust in (and give up their personal responsibility to) a seemingly beneficent leader, in spite of the wisdom of not doing so.  He advocates, “Take care of yourself and assiduously look out for your own interests in your life inside work organizations.” (187)

“In a nutshell, companies will treat you well as long as you seem as though you are going to be useful in the future, and companies will probably be less inclined to treat you well or to repay past contributions the minute you are perceived as being less useful in future endeavors.” ( 179)

Fixing Leadership Failures. “I find it depressing that we would want to discuss the state of leadership in organizations from the perspective of what feels good and uplifting, rather than what the evidence shows to be true.” (194)  This chapter basically advocates acknowledging the reality of what leadership is, not what it might be, and accepting the uncomfortable truth that many, many very successful leaders got that way by violating most of the recommendations offered by the leadership industry. He does not advocate arrogant, self-centered, self-aggrandizing, self-serving behavior but says that to ignore that such behavior has not always been an impediment to success, is dishonest.  “Averting our eyes from the facts may provide solace, but it does so at the price of progress.”  (194)

His advice to aspiring and current leaders:

• Stop confusing the Normative with the Descriptive, and focus more on What Is.
• Watch Actions, Not Words.
• Sometimes you have to Behave Badly to do Good
• Advice to Leaders depends on the Ecosystem in which they are operating.
• Stop Either-Or  thinking
• Forgive, but Remember

He offers an intriguing list of disconnections (eg, the disconnect between leader performance and behavior,  and the consequences those leaders face) and concluded that “…the remedy for the many leadership failures seems simple, and it is: to restore the broken connections, the linkages between behavior and its consequences, words and actions, prescriptions and reality.  But this task will not be easy. The disconnections serve many powerful interests, and they serve those interests extremely well.”  (219)

AND YET…. I believe there are important caveats to his objections to how the leadership industry promotes these five (and other) attributes.  While I agree with nearly all his points, I think Pfeffer throws the baby out with the bathwater.  I cannot argue with the ugliness of the reality he describes, and the ineffectiveness – indeed the vacuousness – of much of what the leadership industry promotes. I’ve been a part of it, and have also regarded much of what I’ve seen (and participated in!) as little more than “feel-good” box checking.

But there ARE advantages to expressing and reiterating an ideal, to creating, discussing and reenforcing a higher standard. Indeed, it can be done better – and he is right that many in the leadership industry make a lot of money providing little more than entertainment and short-lived inspirational bromides to businesses, rather than truly affecting positive change.  That said, some in the leadership industry are doing it better and are truly making a real difference, and some in Corporate America are paying attention and doing significantly better as a result.  Pfeffer is right that the reality is ugly, and there are abundant examples of stupid, self-serving, short-sighted, unimaginative, insensitive leaders using their employees as mere means to advance their careers and fatten their personal bank accounts.  We will never eliminate that. That is important to acknowledge. And to fight against.

I agree with my friend George Reed who said that organizations which talk about leadership, good leadership, generally have better leadership than those which don’t talk about leadership.  Such discussions, such workshops, a positive and constant drumbeat can provide leaders, managers, employees with a standard against which to measure their reality.  And sometimes leaders, managers, employees are inspired to be better.  Because we see so little Christ-like behavior is not a good reason for Christians not to go to church.

While modesty may be over-rated, we remember the hubris of Enron’s Ken Lay and F. Ross Johnson of Barbarians at the Gate notoriety.  Do we not acknowledge the value of a certain degree of humility?  While we recognize that leaders cannot be completely authentic or truthful in their dealings with their stakeholders, are we willing to accept complete phonies and liars?  There is a wisdom in moderation, with virtue being the mean between two extremes, with good judgment and contextual considerations taking primacy.  And over the long run, combined with competence in fundamental business skills, virtue does indeed have value in the market place.

Like many such books, I believe Pfeffer makes his point too strongly, and perhaps too stridently,  and doesn’t adequately acknowledge or respect an alternate point of view.  That said, I believer this is a valuable and worthwhile book for those in business, and in the leadership industry to read and consider.

Some Quotes  ( laying out his reasons for writing the book:)   

 “The Leadership industry also has its share of quacks and sham artists who sell promises and stories, some true, some not, but all of them inspirational and comfortable, with not much follow-up to see what really does work and what doesn’t.  (x)

“…much leadership training and development has become too much a form of lay preaching…I explain why inspiration is a very poor foundation on which to build substantive change, and why and how the leadership tales we hear, stories that often have only modest amounts of validity, routinely make things worse, and possibly much worse.   (6)

“…the core of the argument- that the qualities we actually select for and reward in most workplaces are precisely the ones that are unlikely to produce leaders who are good for employees,or, for that matter, for the long-term organizational performance.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          (7)

“Because the focus of much leadership research is precisely on demonstrating the connection between leadership and leader behavior on the one hand and outcomes such as job satisfaction, employee engagement, and turnover on the tother, these data reveal the abject failure of the leadership enterprise.”  (13)

“…people believed in the world described to them in business school and in the prescriptions for leader behavior.  Consequent try, they were surprise by and completely unprepared for what they actually encountered a work. ” (15)

The simple but important point: the oft-observed divergence in interests between individual leaders and the organizations they lead means that any prescription of what someone should do has to begin by both acknowledgtin the trade-off and sorting through that person/ real priorities and the multiple, often poorly correlated measures of a leader/s outcomes.” (19)

“…while leadership research may not be that interested in leader (as opposed to group or organizational) well-being, leaders almost always are.” (21)

“The leadership industry is so obsessively focused on the normative – what leaders should do and how things ought to be – that it has largely ignored asking the fundamental question of what actually is true and going on and why.”  (23-24)

“Without baseline measurements of leader and workplace conditions, it is simply impossible to understand what to do to make improvements.”  (31)

“What’s more, doing the opposite of what the leadership industry advocates is sometimes a much better, more reliable path to individual success. There are, in this domain as in many others, trade-offs, and the frequently unacknowledged trade-off between what is good for the individual and good for the group needs to be front and center in understanding why there is so much leadership failure over such a long time.” (32)

“…the many ways in which people conspire in their own deception, including deceiving themselves about their leaders and the organizations in which they work, would require a book in itself to do justice to this vitally important topic.”  181

THIS ONE PAGE, NEAR THE VERY END, SUMMARIZES MANY OF THE KEY POINTS OF THE BOOK

Why this book:  My good friend Jay read it after I recommended  Vonnegut’s Slaughter House Five to him. I had read Slaughter House Five twice and found it really clever, creative, and powerful.  I had read Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle in college and it made quite an impression on me.   The irony was delicious.  Vonnegut is a very creative and eccentric writer and I thought Jay’s recommendation of Breakfast of Champions  would justify reading this one as well.

My impressions:  First, I did not “read” the book – I listened to it on audio, narrated by John Malkovich as an audible book.  I would have gotten more out of reading it, though Malkovich was probably the perfect voice to read this.  The book is indeed a bit bizarre, and following it – paying attention and appreciating the satire and nuances while driving  – was at times difficult.   It is very much a satire – and represented Vonnegut’s views on the absurdity of some of what we simply don’t notice or take for granted in the way we live.

Breakfast of Champions itself is named for a wry comment that a waitress makes to one of the characters in the book referring to a drink.  Vonnegut tells the story as if to an extra-terrestrial, who doesn’t know or understand much about human beings, the earth or how humans live together, especially in America.  So he explains everything – and his explanations highlight the absurdity of so much we see and do.  The protagonist is Kilgore Trout, an obscure very-little read science fiction writer who suddenly finds himself catapulted into the public eye as the guest of honor at an arts festival.  Up to that point, most of Kilgore Trout’s weird but creative short stories had been used as filler in pornographic magazines. Kilgore Trout is old, reclusive, not quite destitute, eccentric and now finds himself dealing with decisions he’s never made before.

Vonnegut uses a number of unusual means to make his points.  He treats sex very dispassionately and biologically, and satirizes our fascination with it by describing in laboratory terms the parts of the bodies of varies characters in the book – as though these dimensions were essential to know their character.  He injects himself into the story, remarking that the characters in the book do what they do because he, the author, makes them do these things. And then near the end, he actually becomes one of the characters in his story, sitting at the table with Kilgore Trout and other characters in the book.   He concludes with a conversation between Kilgore Trout and himself – ‘his creator.’   He convinces Trout that he is a mere character in his book and then asks him what he would like to do, ask, tell – because he – Vonnegut the author – can make it happen.   The metaphor is fascinating.  The absurdities in the book are sometimes over the top – but always attention getting, clever, sometimes ingenious, sometimes simply disturbing.

Would I recommend it?  Depends on your sense of the absurd and of irony.  It is indeed a clever book – but there really wasn’t much of a story line – some interesting and truly absurd characters – it reminded me a bit of Catch 22 in how the characters were paradies of archetypes we see in every day life -good and bad.  The story served as a vehicle for Vonnegut to share his whimsical look at the human race and things we take seriously, and as such, it wandered a bit.  Vonnegut himself was definitely out on the edge.